Where the Raybestos Rookies qualified at Daytona:
Franchitti 4th
Clauson 7th
Gale 31st

RAYBESTOS® ROOKIE CONTENDER QUALIFYING QUOTES FOR THE CAMPING WORLD 300 NASCAR NATIONWIDE SERIES RACE AT DAYTONA INTERNATIONAL SPEEDWAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2008.

DARIO FRANCHITTI IN THE No. 40 FASTENAL DODGE WAS THE TOP RAYBESTOS ROOKIE QUALIFIER AT DAYTONA. “It felt really good. The Fastenal Dodge was very well balanced there. That’s kind of what we ran in practice. What I’m learning here is that it gets interesting in the draft. That’s when the car starts sliding around, whether it be the Sprint Cup car or the Nationwide car they are a handful here at Daytona so I’m just getting used to that.” WHO HAS HELPED YOU THE MOST IN SINGLE-CAR RUNS? “I think the biggest help there was just my team. Everybody in the organization has put together a good car. I’m getting more help from the other drivers in the draft for sure. A lot of the veterans and my teammates are helping me out which is very good of them. There’s not much to see, really. I went out and held it wide-open and the Fastenal Dodge was pretty quick, I think. Tomorrow in the draft is when we work hard but today qualifying was pretty easy. I think judging by the practice in the Nationwide car it’s going to be tough.” WHAT DO YOU WORK ON THE CAR TO MAKE IT THAT FAST? “The guys just did their work, really. Hopefully that setup is going to be good for the race because that’s when it counts.” DO YOU THINK QUALIFYING IS IMPORTANT HERE IN DAYTONA? “No, not at all [smiles]. I learned even yesterday in the short time that I was in the Duel 150 that qualifying doesn’t matter. You can go from the back to the front pretty quickly or from the front to the back pretty quickly.” COMMENT ON THE INTERNATIONAL IMPACT OF NASCAR. “I haven’t been home for a while but they put the race on live now, certainly Sprint Cup races which is big so I’m really looking forward to seeing that. It’s getting there. It’s getting bigger for sure and that’s what we’re looking for.” WHAT ARE YOUR EXPECTATIONS FOR THE RACE? “Who knows. We’ll see how it goes and see if we can get up front.”

BRYAN CLAUSON, No. 41 TEXACO/HAVOLINE DODGE: “That was about a tenth-and-a-half better than we ran there in practice. We k new we probably didn’t have a shot at the pole. The Toyotas were pretty strong all day in single car runs all this week. We were just hoping to get somewhere in the top-15. I think that should be good enough to put us there and give us a good starting spot for tomorrow. The biggest thing is just getting your car working good in the draft and get it handling well and we were able to do that during practice the last few days. I really feel like our Texaco/Havoline Dodge can be really good tomorrow during the heat. Hopefully we can just find ourselves a drafting partner and make our way towards the front.” HAVE YOU HAD ANY DIFFICULTY FINDING A DRAFTING PARTNER? “When you have that yellow stripe down underneath you it’s hard to get guys to push. We’ve been trying to make friends out there in drafting practice and been talking to a few guys so I think come tomorrow we’re going to have to do the pushing to start and then hopefully as the race goes we’ll find somebody to kind of push us along.” WHAT WOULD BE A GOOD DAY IN THE RACE? “Anything inside the top-10 would be an outstanding day for us. We’re going to try to make all 300 miles and try to learn the draft as much as we can and hopefully be there at the end when it counts.”

CALE GALE, No. 77 RHEEM CHEVROLET: ARE YOU PRETTY HAPPY WITH THAT LAP? “We’ll see. It depends on what the wind does here in a little while but I feel like it’ll hold up pretty decent. I don’t know where it’ll end up; hopefully somewhere in the top-20 and give us a decent starting position. But I feel like I’ve got a good car for the race. Our Rheem Chevy Monte Carlo SS seems to be running pretty good. I’m just excited to be running the Camping World 300 tomorrow.” YOU ARE RUNNING A LIMITED SCHEDULE THIS YEAR FOR KEVIN HARVICK INC. THIS IS A GOOD OPPORTUNITY FOR CALE GALE. “You can’t ask for much more than that right now. The economy is pretty tough right now and thank God we’ve got good sponsors that want to jump on board with Rheem, Road Loans and Camping World. I’m real excited about sharing a car with Kevin this year and gaining valuable experience.” THIS IS ONE OF THE BIGGEST RACES OF THE YEAR BUT YOU DON’T MAKE A LOT OF QUALIFYING RUNS IN PRACTICE. “In a sense we do. I feel like you come down here for two or three days testing. First day you usually run by yourself to get the most speed you can get out of it by yourself. The main thing here at Daytona is driving good. I feel like at Talladega you might want to qualify a little bit better because handling, especially with the new pavement and everything, handling is pretty much out of it. But you need to handle here. So yesterday we worked on driving it good. May have knocked a little speed out of it but we’ll see where we end up tomorrow afternoon when it counts.” HAVE YOU HAD ANY TROUBE GETTING DRAFTING HELP IN PRACTICE? “I don’t really know yet. I mean, I don’t feel like I’ll get much help but we’ll see tomorrow. If I look like I’m stable and picking the right lanes I feel like you’ll get help. If a fast car is going I’m going to follow it, whoever is fast. The main thing is that it’s a 300-mile race, got to stay out of wrecks and stay on your toes the whole race and hopefully a shot right there at the end.” IS THERE SUCH A THING AS STRATEGY HERE IN THE RACE? “For me, no, because I don’t know what to do to start with [laughs] so we’ll see. I’m going to go out there and run as hard as I can run. I feel like we’ve got a good enough car to run up front. But like I said, I’m kind of inexperienced at this superspeedway stuff so we’ll see.”